If you want to cycle your tank and keep fish at the same time, then you can use a product like Seachem Prime to keep your aquatic pets safe. So, will adding this water conditioner in your fish tank stall the cycling process?
You can find out in this Aquarium Blueprints article.
Quick Summary
As long as you don’t severely overdose Seachem Prime by more than 5 times the recommended amount, then the water conditioner won’t stop or stall the cycling process.
In fact, the product is extremely helpful for fish-in cycling as it will convert ammonia and nitrites to non-toxic forms, which makes both safe for your fish while also providing food sources for the beneficial bacteria colonies to consume and grow.
The recommended dosage amount for Prime is 5 mL to treat every 50 gallons (or 200 liters) of aquarium waters. Therefore, you can add as much as 25 mL per ever 50 gallons (or 200 liters) without potentially hurting the biological filtration you are trying to build up through the cycling process.
How dose Seachem Prime help with fish-in cycling?
If you decide to cycle your aquarium while having fish living inside of it at the same time, then Seachem Prime will help keep your pets safe.
During fish-in cycling, your fish will get exposed to ammonia and nitrites, both of which are extremely toxic. By using Seachem Prime, you will be able to detoxify ammonia and nitrites for a maximum of 48 hours.
To make absolutely sure that your pet fish is completely safe from ammonia and nitrites, we recommend dosing Prime into the tank daily.
The water conditioner also provides the following benefits:
- Remove chlorine
- Remove chloramine.
- Detoxify nitrates.
- Detoxify heavy metals.
- Promote slime coating production to ward off infections.
Does using Seachem Prime stop or stall the cycling process?
Seachem Prime should not stop or stall the cycling process. This is because the solution will only bind ammonia and nitrites to non-toxic forms for your fish; as a result, these compounds can still be readily consumed by the beneficial bacteria living in your fish tank.
The only scenario that Prime could disrupt the cycling process is that if you accidentally overdosed too much of the solution.
For the uninformed, Seachem recommends that you add 5 mL of the solution for every 50 gallons (or 200 liters) of tank water. The company has also stated that you can overdose Prime by as much as 5 times the recommended amount without causing any issues.
If you managed to add more than 5 times the recommended amount, however, then the oxygen levels in your tank will start to deplete. Due to the lack of oxygen, the beneficial bacteria colonies won’t be able to grow, which results in the cycling process being stalled.
To learn more about the effects of a tank that has been severely overdosed with Seachem Prime, as well as how you can make the tank water safe again, you can take a look at this guide.
To see how you can properly use the product for fish-in cycling, you can check out this tutorial.
